New Delhi: PATA India Chapter 2025 held its 19th Update and Outlook meeting in collaboration with Ministry of Tourism. Director General Ministry of Tourism, Govt of India, Mughda Sinha was Chief Guest.
Attended by a number of Travel Business related people, key areas of concern of India’s travel trade and industry were brought forth by PATA India (Pacific Asia Travel Association) for the government to be addressed. DG Tourism, Mughda Sinha presented a macro picture of where India stands today in its tourism potential on the world stage.
Highlighting the cultural, historical, monumental attractions, crafts and heritage of thousands of years Sinha giving a sneak peak into the future said that AI being the future, Tourism and Travel is already showing signs of the change that technology is bringing in the industry. AI can not only plan an ideal itinerary for a traveler but also gives them the choice of flexibility and customization at best price with all information at a click of a mouse.
She emphasized that if travel agents don’t catch up they might find themselves irrelevant soon.
How does the world look at India…it looks at us as a market with 1.4 billion people, 30 million middle class people wanting to travel having so much disposable income. We must start looking at the world too like that, Sinha said.
DG Tourism emphasized the huge gap between footfalls in India’s most famous monuments and the ones in other countries like Italy, France, (Europe), UAE, Oman or Singapore, Thailand or Vietnam like countries and asked travel stake holders to adopt a more aggressive approach when asking foreign travel companies to bring them tourists to India in terms of numbers. She stressed upon the importance of marketing our country well.
On the issue of safety on foreign as well as domestic travellers in India, which is a matter that has affected tourism, Sinha said, it is also the job of local facilitators to ensure that tourists feel safe. ‘So one thing is state/agency managed safety. Largely India is a travel friendly country. But more than safety is the lack of protocols & lack of communication that we have in the country. I feel we need to improve our crisis communication strategy. But private sector also needs to be questioned on their protocol. It is not the Government’s job to teach civic sense to people.’
As for what the government is doing, she informed, ‘we are investing heavily in shepharding common people into what is Paryatan Didi & Partyatan Mitra programmes.’
She talked about the 3 ‘I’s. Incredible India for strategic visioning for the country, International marketing, & ITDC (it gives a capacity building template).
For the role of PATA, Sinha said it should ask the aggregators, what kind of itineraries they can curate for future target audience of all ages as also educate our tour operators to tell foreign tour operators about our country.
The event was presided by Executive Director Runeep Sangha and Honorary Secretary San Jeet.
